When they got on the downs they had a delightful canter; but Zoe, in her fevered state of mind, was not content with that. She kept increasing the pace, till the old hunter could no longer live with the young filly; and she galloped away from Lord Uxmoor, and made him ridiculous in the eyes of his groom.
The truth is, she wanted to get away from him.
He drew the rein, and stood stock-still. She made a circuit of a mile, and came up to him with heightened color and flashing eyes, looking beautiful.
"Well?" said she. "Don't you like galloping?""Yes, but I don't like cruelty."
"Cruelty?"
"Look at the mare's tail how it is quivering, and her flanks panting! And no wonder. You have been over twice the Derby course at a racing pace.
Miss Vizard, a horse is not a steam engine.""I'll never ride her again," said Zoe. "I did not come here to be scolded. I will go home."They walked slowly home in silence. Uxmoor hardly knew what to say to her; but at last he murmured, apologetically, "Never mind the poor mare, if you are better for galloping her."She waited a moment before she spoke, and then she said, "Well, yes; I am better. I'm better for my ride, and better for my scolding. Good-by."(Meaning forever.)
"Good-by," said he, in the same tone. Only he sent the mare next day, and followed her on a young thorough-bred.
"What!" said Zoe; "am I to have another trial?""And another after that."
So this time she would only canter very slowly, and kept stopping every now and then to inquire, satirically, if that would distress the mare.
But Uxmoor was too good-humored to quarrel for nothing. He only laughed, and said, "You are not the only lady who takes a horse for a machine."These rides did her bodily health some permanent good; but their effect on her mind was fleeting. She was in fair spirits when she was actually bounding through the air, but she collapsed afterward.
At first, when she used to think that Severne never came near her, and Uxmoor was so constant, she almost hated Uxmoor--so little does the wrong man profit by doing the right thing for a woman. I admit that, though not a deadly woman-hater myself.